On the Roster - Chapter 7

Kiri turned towards the lander. Hunched over the remains of the stormbolter was the genestealer. Dravik was on the ground a few feet away, scrambling to try to put as much distance between him and the stealer as he could.

One of the stealers claws held a limp form in it. It dropped the body as it turned to look at Dravik. Varro’s corpse now draped across the entrance to the lander.

Kiri raised her lasgun and sighted down it. What she wouldn’t give to be holding her father’s old hunting rifle that she had learned with. Still, her lasgun was a solid and reliable weapon of the Imperium and it shot true. She quickly sighted the genestealer’s head and pulled the trigger. Her aim was true, but the beast chose that exact moment to take a step towards Dravik. Instead of blowing a hole through its head, she caught it in the carapace. It stumbled, but did not fall.

It turned to look straight at her.

She sighted and fired again. The creature was lightning fast. It ducked, just narrowly managing to avoid the shot. Now it started to lope towards her. She was 80 feet away from the lander, but the abomination was closing fast.

Another shot. This one went wide.

Again. This time it winged the xenos in the arm. The alien stumbled briefly, but was sprinting again before Kiri had finished exhaling.

She squeezed the trigger again. This time, it ducked. Her lasbolt bounced off the Voidstorm, singing the paint.

It was coming so fast that time seemed to slow to a crawl for Kiri. Even as she sighted and prepared to fire again. The details around her popped into her focus.

Dravik was standing and rushing back into the lander. Likely to grab a gun from the weapon locker.

Corwin stood a dozen paces from the lander, his back to the ramp, shooting from the hip.

Festerwel tried to shoot the stealer with his laspistol, but his shot went wide. Hard to blame the man, considering how fast the stealer was, and also that he had his other arm under Tallow’s shoulder in order to help him back to the lander. Maybe he’s not a total waste of skin, she thought.

The lander remained where it was, engines humming. Varro’s blood slowly leaked down the landing ramp and pooled on the ground.

Cultists were dying, but they were also giving back almost as good as they got. Dravik was shot in the shoulder as he approached the lander, and he was flung through the door. An explosion near Corwin tossed him through the air, his yell of fury somehow cutting through the noise of battle.

Marrick lobbed a frag grenade behind some cover (to an explosion and a chorus of shrieks) and before dropping another cultist with a well placed shot.

But mostly, Kiri saw the stealer. It was fifteen feet away now, bounding forward in a blur of limbs.

She fired —

And burned a ragged hole through its leg. The stench of scorched flesh and chitin filled her nose.

The alien shrieked, stumbling, but its sheer momentum carried it on, an aura of sheer wrongness pressing on her chest. Time seemed to fracture.

She noticed the saliva stretching from its teeth, the flex of each claw as it spread wide, the unnatural ripple of its muscles beneath pallid armour plates.

The air itself felt thick, heavy with the weight of its presence.

In an eyeblink it was upon her, and one of its arms - sporting three claws like curved daggers — plunged for her chest.